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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (6004)	2/11/2009 11:16:39 AM
From: Lane3	3 Recommendations Respond to of 42652

But I think it would be politically difficult to impliment a new mandatory system with differing premium tiers based on age. I assume that by "new mandatory system" you're referring to a national healthcare system. If so, I agree that setting it up with differing premium tiers would be difficult if not impossible politically, although I haven't heard anyone planning any new system that subsumes Medicare. So the only AARP members in the new system would be those 55-64, which would lessen their leverage. I would not advocate a new mandatory system with differing premium tiers. It wouldn't be necessary to have tiers if the program were mandatory for the young. It's only when younger people don't participate that you need tiers to protect long time participants from free riders. That was the point I was trying to make by offering the federal employee program as an example. It doesn't have tiers because younger employees who opt out can't opt in later when they are older and more costly to the system. So heavy participation by younger employees balances the cost of covering the older employees at the same premium. Actually, though, I wouldn't advocate for any new mandatory program--with or without tiers.